Alabama executes Michael Land: The state of Alabama used its highest power last Thursday to put a man to death. Michael Land, 41, spent 17 years on death row after being convicted of the 1992 murder of Candace Brown. He is the 47th person executed in Alabama. Land shot Brown, a 30-year-old mother of a toddler, after kidnapping her from her house during a robbery.

VictoryLand shuts up shop: Milton McGregor’s VictoryLand “bingo” casino in Macon County closed Monday, ostensibly to avoid a raid by Gov. Bob Riley’s anti-gambling task force, the Birmingham News reported.

There’s been a slew of good news in the Alabama auto industry this week. As you know, Alabama has three auto manufacturing plants—the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, the Hyundai plant in Montgomery and the Honda plant in Lincoln. The good news is that sales of vehicles made at all three plants are up this month, according to separate reports by the Birmingham Business Journal.

The Birmingham City Council approved a year-long extension of a Congressional lobbying contract with the firm Handprint Bell Consulting, LLC, on Tuesday. The contract was hotly debated for several reasons, one being the cost—$250,000 for services through July 2011, and, optionally, $300,000 for 2012. “Actually, we can get high-quality representation in Washington for half the price,” Councilor Kim Rafferty said. Another issue was the firm’s failure to secure appropriations for the city, a concern expressed by Councilor Steven Hoyt: “I want some real results, and we’ve not gotten that,” he said.

42,000 jobs saved by stimulus: In June, 215,813 Alabamians, or 10.3 percent, were unemployed according to the Department of Industrial Relations, but that number may have been significantly worse were it not for the stimulus bill. That bill, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped to create or save 42,000 jobs in Alabama since the bill passed in February 2009, according to a report from the Council of Economic Advisers cited by the Birmingham Business Journal.

Free skin care for all Alabamians! State Rep. Robert Bentley of Tuscaloosa secured the Republican nomination for Alabama governor Tuesday night. He defeated Bradley Byrne, whom Gov. Bob Riley picked to serve as chancellor of the Alabama Community College System after a slew of corruption scandals. Riley issued a long-expected but late endorsement of Byrne on Monday, but despite that (or perhaps because of it) Bentley defeated Byrne soundly, earning 56 percent of the vote to Byrne’s 44 percent.

Robert Bentley endorsed by the Huckster.

Firefighters may get pay cut because of accounting error: It’s never good news when we have to cut the pay of the people whose job it is to save our lives. But it’s especially bad news when that happens due to an error like this one, revealed by former Birmingham Weekly columnist Kyle Whitmire at his new blog, The Second Front. The Jefferson County Personnel Board requires that firefighters and police be paid the same. In 2008, Birmingham’s then-Mayor Larry Langford had a new time-clock system installed for city workers, causing firefighters and police officers to be switched from salary to an hourly pay system.

Bad news for Sparks, or not? A June 3 poll of 500 likely Alabama voters suggests Democratic nominee for Alabama governor Ron Sparks will face an uphill battle in November. The poll, which was conducted by independent national polling firm Rasmussen Reports and reported on in the Birmingham News, found that 49 percent of respondents would choose Republican Bradley Byrne over Sparks, with only 40 percent choosing Sparks. Robert Bentley would fare even better—he got 56 percent to Spark’s 37 percent.

One hell of a Tuesday: After Tuesday’s Alabama primary elections, “I did not expect that” became the Wednesday-morning mantra of most Monday-morning campaign strategists. Things were topsy-turvy everywhere—frontrunners rethought, some incumbents tossed, others given another shot—causing Birmingham-Southern College political science professor and political analyst Natalie Davis to stay up past 1 a.m., offering her expertise and thoughts to the WBRC anchors, who were also having a late night.